Golden Stories

Their sire waxed eloquent over the art of castle building and the sport of imprisoning ogres in them, but was finally compelled to assume the attitude of an ogre himself, and threatened to skin them alive if they did not do as they were bid.

It was a long, hard day for the whole Cadge family. The little Cadges worked like galley-slaves in fear of the lash; their mother, out of pity for them, laid two tiers of cobbles when she came at noon, and even Cadge himself was tempted on one or two occasions to descend from his nook and lend a hand, but restrained himself.

Again the owls hooted along the stream and bullfrogs croaked from the reedy places. Cadge knocked the dottle out of his pipe and arose, stretching his short, muscular limbs, which had become cramped from sitting still so long.

"Run along 'ome, kiddies," he said, "and tell the old woman not to wait supper for me. There's a man down town as wants to see me about a job. I'll 'ave a bite with 'im."

The little Cadges disappeared in the twilight and their father presented himself at the Widow Pipkin's door to receive his hard-earned wages.

"Oh, dear me! I can't pay you to-night," answered Mrs. Pipkin. "I never keep any money in the house."

Cadge grumbled something about, a check would do. He was pretty sure that the barkeeper at Spider Grogan's place would cash it.

"Oh, but mine is a savings account, and I will have to go down to the bank myself and get the money; but, never mind, you shall have it first thing Monday morning."

The thirsty man could find no solution to this problem and, although he urged the Widow Pipkin to think of a way, as his "missus needed the medicine something orful," that kind-hearted old lady could suggest nothing more to the point than going at once with a mustard poultice to the sufferer.

Old women are so set in their notions that the anxious husband was a full half hour dissuading her, and, when he reached home with both hands in his empty pockets, Mrs. Cadge was washing the dishes.

"Did the man give you a job?" inquired his wife brightly.

"Wot man? Wot job? Where's my supper?" snapped Cadge. Then, as the ingenious ruse occurred to him, a flood of language rose to his lips and would not be dammed, though everything else was.

"Gone and hogged all the supper, did you!" he growled. "H'it's a nice state of affairs, when a man comes 'ome from a 'ard day's work to a h'empty table."

"But it was such a little steak, Tom," urged his wife, "and the children were so hungry that I let them finish it."

There was no money in the house, and Snavely, the only credit grocer, had closed his shop, so Mr. Cadge's supper that night was bread and cheese without kisses.

Sunday was a long-remembered day of misery for Cadge's wife and children, who played the scapegoat for Mr. Snavely and whipping-boy for Mrs. Pipkin.

Monday morning the head of the house arose early and, before Mrs. Pipkin had finished her beauty sleep, that hard-working man was at the door demanding his pay. An hour was all the time she required for dressing. Mr. Cadge wished he had broken his fast before leaving home.

"Really, I don't know whether I ought to pay you," replied Widow Pipkin when she finally answered his last, desperate ring. "Mr. Snavely made the bargain, and I should like to have him see the work before settling with you."

She jingled some silver in her plump chain purse as she spoke.

Aha, the widow had deceived him! It was eight o'clock, the bank would not open for an hour, she had had the money in the house all the time. The deceitfulness of women!

Mr. Cadge's blood rose to his head. His little green eyes smouldered. Fortunately for the widow, Mr. Snavely drove up at that moment on his delivery wagon, and cheerfully agreed to appraise the work.

"Oh, come now, Cadge, my man, you don't call that a finished job, I hope? Why, it is three foot short at each end and lacks a tier at the top. You had better pitch in for an hour or two and make a fair job of it, and then you'll get your money."

"Wot do you call a fair job, I should like to know?" replied the heated Cadge; "look at them 'ere boulders, as I fished out of the h'icy water at peek o' day! Look at all them little stones, h'every one of them as cost me backache and sweat. H'if that job ain't worth six dollars it ain't worth six cents."

"Mebbe so, mebbe so, my good man," responded the grocer, genially, "but whatever it's worth, I don't pay for a job until it's finished."

At this point Cadge's torrent of eloquence swept away all punctuating pauses and he became slightly incoherent, but the drift of his harangue was that because he had worked like a slave and finished the wall in two days they wanted to rob him of his money. "I'll 'ave the six dollars for my work, or I'll 'ave the lor on you," he concluded.

The amiable but tactless Snavely saw a happy solution of the problem. "Never mind, Mrs. Pipkin," he said, "there shall be no lawsuit. You pay me the six dollars, and I will write Cadge a receipt for the seven dollars he owes me. I lose a dollar that way, to be sure, but then it is just the same as finding six."

"Ho! that's your game is it?" snarled Cadge, gasping with indignation. "That's 'ow you two plot against a poor 'ard-workin' man with a family, to beat him out of 'is pay. H'it's a put-up job, that's wot h'it is! But you don't get the best of Tom Cadge that way. I'll 'ave a h'orficer 'ere if I don't get my money, you bloomin' old plotters, you!"

"Yes, you had better call an officer," agreed Mr. Snavely. "I saw one around the corner as I passed; the same one your brats were pelting from behind a fence last week."

Mr. Cadge tacked adroitly. "No, I ain't going to spend my money with the loryers, as'd want twelve dollars to get you back six. I'll tear down the wall, that's wot I'll do. If I don't get my pay the loidy don't get her wall, and you can tike your measly job and give it to some poor man wot needs it."

Mr. Snavely had one foot on the wheel and swung lightly into his cart. "Have it your own way, Cadge," he responded cheerfully. "You can finish the wall and get your six dollars cash, or you can leave it as it stands and take my receipt for seven, or you can tear it down and have your labor for your pains; but mind, if the police catch you destroying property, you will get a month in the chain gang."

"I don't care if I get sixty days!" screamed the outraged laborer. "The city can look after my missus and the kids if their nateral provider is took from them. That wall is comin' down! I'm h'only a workin'-man, and I don't mind bein' spit on once in a while, but I won't stand for it bein' rubbed in."

It was a sultry June day, the first of the summer vacation, and toward noon Mrs. Cadge set out to take her husband a bite of lunch. The little Cadges accompanied her, eager to exhibit the noble castle which they had completed on Catnip Creek. When they came to that charming stream, their eyes flew open in amazement and their jaws dropped.

"Why, mamma, look at daddy!" they cried in unison. "Daddy's workin'!"

Incredible though it seemed, it was true indeed. Father worked. Mrs. Cadge wondered whether she, too, was to have a vacation, after her years of drudgery.

Cadge worked furiously, his rage uncooled by the waters of the Catnip which flowed through his shoes. He had discarded coat, vest, and hat, and was hurling rocks with the strength of a maddened giant, clear across the stream. What splendid muscles he had!

A tier or two of Mrs. Pipkin's wall was already down. The telephone within her cottage was ringing madly.

Even as the Cadgelings watched their parent sweating at his toil, a blue-coated figure ran swiftly down the bank, caught the hard-working man by the collar, and firmly led him away to where steady work awaited him.

Mrs. Cadge watched him go with mingled feelings. She had seen him depart thus before, and remembered how much easier it was that month to feed four mouths instead of five. Besides, the exercise on the rock pile would do him good, poor man. A night-watchman's position was so confining.

Mr. Snavely had driven up to the curb, and the Widow Pipkin ran out all of a flutter. They sympathetically related to Mrs. Cadge the events of the morning which had led to her husband's arrest.

"And there was only an hour's work to be done on the job," said Mr. Snavely judicially.

"I would gladly pay six dollars cash to have it just as it was this morning," added the tremulous Widow Pipkin, "and I'd make it ten if it were done as Mr. Snavely says."

"And I'd still be willing to write a receipt for the full seven dollars for six dollars cash," interposed that astute philanthropist.

Mrs. Cadge's shrewd, birdlike eyes were half closed in mental computation; ten dollars for the wall and one dollar discount on the grocery bill, that would make eleven dollars clear.

"Come along, kiddies," she said, "you and me will pitch in and finish that wall to the queen's taste in an hour or two!" And she did.

Eleven dollars clear, and the watchman's pay still going on, Cadge on the rock pile, hence the biggest mouth of the family fed by the city. Indeed, indeed, the little Cadges were not the only ones who enjoyed a vacation when father worked!